Spirited effort by PSU

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Ogee Ogilthorpe

Ogee Ogilthorpe

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PSU pretty much gave everything they had in this one. Couldn't imagine things going much better for the Nitts but it still wasn't enough.

Way too many interior defensive lapses by the Rodents but fortunately the opponent was PSU tonight.

Not a good sign to see the FT shooting a problem again, with the exception of crunch time. Gophers could have closed things out quite a bit sooner if they had made a few FT's earlier in the game.

At the end of the day, mission accomplished, 1-0 in conference play.
 


Agree. I thought we looked pretty poor on both ends for the most part. Lots of lazy, undisciplined stuff from the guys tonight throughout. That's about as well as I've seen Penn State play. I honestly don't think they're capable of much more than they showed tonight. The fact that we let them right back into it in the first five minutes of the second half was really disappointing. No doubt about it that Westbrook saved us from a loss tonight.
 

Very poor performance by the Gophers tonight. That was an hour or so of stress that I didn't need. Giving so many open looks to Battle was disappointing as was the absolute clueless play against PSU's zone for a stretch in the 2nd half.

Can we please close out a game by making ft's and not allowing wide open 3's on the other end of the court?

One key play that demonstrated need for Mbakwe/White was a nice dropoff pass to Sampson which should have resulted in an "and 1" instead Ralph simply wasn't strong enough to finish (I hope he will be in time). To compound the problem, he missed both free throws.
 



I agree that Penn St. couldn't have played much better. However, we made some terrible mistakes. We left Battle alone a couple times, and that is unacceptable. We also didn't get much from Johnson.
 

Unimpressive.

Need to improve or they're looking at 7-11 in the B10. Luckily Iowa City HS is up next.
 

Art Vandelay said:
Unimpressive.

Need to improve or they're looking at 7-11 in the B10. Luckily Iowa City HS is up next.
Click to expand...

Iowa only lost by like 10 or 11 to Purdue tonight. I was pretty surprised by that, even though it was @ Iowa.
 




Johnson got us off to a poor start. He plays so lackadaisically, can't take it strong to the hole and makes too many mental mistakes. Plus he loves to travel and make poor passes. And he misses too many fts
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
PSU pretty much gave everything they had in this one. Couldn't imagine things going much better for the Nitts but it still wasn't enough.

Way too many interior defensive lapses by the Rodents but fortunately the opponent was PSU tonight.

Not a good sign to see the FT shooting a problem again, with the exception of crunch time. Gophers could have closed things out quite a bit sooner if they had made a few FT's earlier in the game.

At the end of the day, mission accomplished, 1-0 in conference play.
Click to expand...

I was very impressed by the play of Penn State - I don't think they could have played much better. The Gophers actually played a decent game, except for the beginning of the second half. Tubby needed to go to Westbrook and Hoff earlier in that situation. Luckily, they bailed the team out. The Gophers really had to work for that win; but it was definitely a nice win, in the end.
 

Art Vandelay said:
Unimpressive.

Need to improve or they're looking at 7-11 in the B10. Luckily Iowa City HS is up next.
Click to expand...

Whatever. They had not played anybody decent in a month, Penn State shot 50% from 3pt range, 49% from the field, and got a great performance from their best player. Penn State came out on fire in the second half, and they didn't go away in the last few minutes. The Gophers got next to nothing from their front court and they still won.

There were plenty of things that they can improve on, but no unbiased person would say the Gophers weren't impressive. I'm not ready to crown them Big Ten champs, but I think you aren't giving Battle and Penn State credit. If the Gophers play that well every night they will be 12-6.
 




I thought Penn State played very well. I thought we did too actually. Penn State is going to surprise some people.
 



Man oh man that Battle has some range. The one 3 that he hit was unbelieveable. My first reaction was "why isn't anyone on him!", then I seen the replay and it was so deep.....you have to give that guy his due. He can shoot.
 

Johnson is our best all around player. He played probably his worst game in 2 years last night. Sometimes you have those nights. He seemed out of it. His style of play is to put you to sleep and let you feel like your open and explode to the ball (pass or shot). Without him we would be in big trouble. Our only aggressive interior player at this point.
 

Gophs played pretty decent, not great, but OK. There were some things to feel good about (Westbrook, Cobbs, Al's steadiness, team's ability to get off the mat from 7 down in the 2nd half when the arena was dead), some things to work on (rebounding, try dabbling in the post a little more, finding someone who can finish at the rim other than Lawrence). Penn State deserves credit. They showed they do have a couple players other than Battle, who is fantastic.

This was one the Gophers had to have, as is Saturday's game in IC. I'm glad we're 1-0. 1-0 and unimpressive (if that was your impression) beats 0-1 and impressive.If we're 2-0 and unimpressive after Saturday's game, I'll be cool with that.
 

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